Earlier this week, our favorite elfin intergalactic musician and role model Grimes offered the Internet a deal in tweet form: “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist I collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have … Continue reading
Category Archives: Camp
The John Waters Collection Doesn’t Hate You, but Contemporary Art Still Might
Someone was taking a dump in The John Waters Restrooms at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Was it an art-inspired intestinal emergency or a dedicated tribute to the filmmaker whose major public stink involved Divine sampling some doggy-doo in the filthy finale of Pink Flamingos? Or perhaps, this intrepid museum-goer previously devoured John’s chapter “Act … Continue reading
“Pearl” Is the Maniacal Somewhere Over the Rainbow-Yearning (Anti-)Heroine We’ve Been Waiting For
“I’M A STAR!” Mia Goth’s psychotic stardom-reaching farmer’s daughter Pearl bends at the waist in her scarlet red version of Margaret Hamilton’s nefarious cyclist Almira Gulch’s high-collared dress in The Wizard of Oz and howls that line from the depths of her soul. Pearl has just attempted a rousing half-imagined bomb-strewn trenches boogie, a kind … Continue reading
Montreal’s “Barbie Expo” is Kitsch Heaven: A (Mostly) Photo Essay
“I just want to be perfect,” says Karen Carpenter in the recording studio, played by a Barbie doll fashioned by director Todd Haynes in, what I would argue, is still his best film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Thanks to Haynes’s deranged casting choice, Barbie is a flawless proxy for Karen Carpenter, the wholesome clear-voiced … Continue reading
Welcome Back to the Pleasure Dome: “After Blue (Paradis sale)” Resurrects the Filthy Delights of Camp Artifice
Are you sick to death of sleek cinema? An overbearing aesthetic that has trickled down so far that even the most whacko experimental films and unhinged underground movies strive to achieve a similar spotless surface perfection as those boring big-budget Hollywood films? Blech! Give me the awkward, the uncanny, the janky, the shonky, the half-baked, … Continue reading
Back in the Saddle Again: Orville Peck’s “Bronco” Reigns in Cowboy Camp
Where have all the cowboys gone? I’ll wait for you to finish belting the rest of that song. It’s hard to resist Paula Cole’s 1990s classic, but if we suppress the urge to run to Sing Sing to furiously (and drunkenly) yodel, “Where is my John Wayne?” we can take her question seriously. I mean, … Continue reading
Trump’s New 45 Wine & Whiskey Is the Best Bar for Considering the End of America
“Watch the wire.” That’s what I was warned as I maneuvered my way around marble-topped tables and White House gewgaws at the new 45 Wine & Whiskey Bar, a Trump-themed Trump bar at Trump Tower on a recent Friday night, trying to reach two plush high-backed dusty magenta chairs that wouldn’t look out of place … Continue reading
My Baby Is A Cool Machine: “Titane” Is The Filthiest Mechanophiliac Serial Killer Film Of 2021
Is there anything that can prepare you to watch a visibly pregnant woman vomit, clutch her belly, and reach into her pants to draw back fingers full of dark, black motor oil? Continue reading
6 Videos To Watch While Waiting For The Second Coming of JFK Jr. This Thanksgiving
Why hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams gobblers! What’s that? You’re excited for the second annual pandemic Thanksgiving?! Well, who isn’t, my little stuffed turklets! When Filthy Dreams was originally conceived as a camp twist on the idea of Nietzsche’s eternal return—a show happening on the hour every hour—a decade ago, we never quite realized how … Continue reading
Diana-rama!: Why Does Princess Di Inspire Such Schlock (And Why Do I Love It So)?
In the latter half of the year of our Lord—or really Lady—2021, I decided to become a Princess Diana obsessive. That’s right, send me all your purple Princess Diana Beanie Babies that you’ve been squirreling away under your beds since the late 1990s just in case they finally become worth more than NFTs. I’m now … Continue reading